ilass-EUROPE 2002

``Atomization and Sprays'' is the official journal of ILASS International; it was founded in 1990 and it is published every two months by Begell House, in New York. Prior to 1990, papers on atomization and sprays were published occasionally and in relative obscurity, in a wide range of scientific and engineering journals. Because atomization and sprays was not their main subject, it was difficult to convince editors to accept papers and it was even more difficult to locate such papers.

In parallel with the growing recognition of ILASS and its regional and international conferences as the focus and center of activities, increasing numbers of researchers, engineers and students began to gravitate to and make presentations at ILASS and ICLASS conferences, which published abstracts of the conference proceedings

Scientific and engineering journals are classified as ``archival'' when they are assigned an international ISSN number, and are purchased and stored in the archives of libraries worldwide. During the initial years of its publication, a journal is monitored for the quality of the articles published, regularity of publication, the expertise of its authors and the reputation of the journal in the scientific and engineering communities. When the journal is considered sufficiently mature, and it's scientific caliber has reached their high standard, it is included in the Science Citation Index (SCI). SCI monitors all papers published in all scientific archival journals and counts the number of times that each paper in a journal is cited in other papers published in archival journals. Among other uses, the Citation Index of a journal is used by university promotion committees and other organizations for assessing the quality and value of each publication for candidates seeking promotion on the basis of their publications.

Because of the high quality and standards of the papers published in A\&S, our journal has been--for the past seven years--included in the international ``Science Citation Index'' and the ``Current Contents in Engineering, Computing and Technology'' as well as ``Aerospace Database''. In addition, all published papers are abstracted in 1) ``Applied Mechanics Reviews'', and 2) ``Chemical Abstracts Service''. All papers are also indexed in ``SciResearch'' and ``Research Alert''. In the period of 12 years, ``Atomization and Sprays'' has grown from a relatively unknown and unimportant subject to the respectable and distinguished status of a well-known and highly respectable scientific and engineering journal.

The high status, high citation index and high ranking of our journal has been achieved by the rigorous and competent review of each manuscript by ILASS members. Every reviewer is carefully selected to be an expert in the relevant field. The editor issues instructions to reviewers to recommend revisions, which include corrections, clarifications, improvement of English, questioning hypotheses, results and conclusions and all recommendations for improving the quality of each manuscript. Reviewers also recommend rejection of manuscripts that are considered to be below the high standards of the journal. Each manuscript is send to four expert reviewers.

Any author may submit his/her manuscript to the Assistant to the Editor, Kate McClintock, for correction and improvement of English usage. This Proofreader's Copy will be returned to the author(s) with the reviewers' comments, to be incorporated in the final copy for submission to the Editor. A fee of one cent American per word is charged. This service is especially useful for authors whose native language is not English.

The Board of Editors meet at regional conferences and each international ICLASS conference. Board members monitor the quality of the journal and report on comments and complaints to the Editor and to the publisher. Board members play an active role in the reviewing process, recommending reviewers, encouraging authors to submit manuscripts, and offering suggestions to the publisher for promotion and advertising the journal. Every member of ILASS can be proud of our journal and its high quality and standard.

As a part of the registration fee at every ILASS Americas conference, attendees receive a personal annual subscription to the journal. This represents a major source of income to the publisher, Begell House. We strongly urge the governing boards of ILASS Europe, Asia, Japan and Korea to follow the example of ILASS Americas by including a personal annual subscription for ``Atomization and Sprays'' in the registration fee for each participant at each ILASS conference in Europe, Asia, Japan and Korea, Every member of ILASS and every participant at every ILASS conference would greatly appreciate and benefit from becoming a personal subscriber to the journal. In the present climate of decreasing library budgets, increasing publication costs and declining subscriptions, the survival of our journal is dependent upon the number of its subscribers. We look to Europe and Asia to make this important contribution to ILASS.